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, c^u-^/-/-/'-^^-^^^ 



REPORT 



ON THE 



Settlement of Warwick, 1642 



AND THE 



Seal of the R. I. Historical Society. 



WILLIAM D^ELY, 

Chairinatt. 



BEPKINTED FROM 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



J. A. & R. A. REID, PRINTERS, 
PROVIDENCE, R. I, 






Report 



Settlement of Warwick, 1642 



AND THE 



SEAL OF THE R. I. HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



As our measurements of space and quantity arc but 
approximations to absolute truth, so it is with those 
of time. The Julian Calendar, or Old Style, dating 
from about forty-five years before Christ, is avowedly 
incorrect, though still used by several prominent na- 
tions of the world. 

The Gregorian year, or New Style, as reformed by 
Gregory XIII. , merely minimizes the errors of "Old 
Style" and is but a close approximation to time 
which is truly true, while with gross inconsistency it 
retains the Latin numerals in the names of tlie seventh, 
eighth, ninth and tenth months of "Old Style," to 
designate, erroneously, what are now the ninth, tenth. 



4 THK SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

eleventh and twelfth months of the year. So, too, our 
revered " Christian Era," not invented by Dionysius 
Exiguous till about five hundred and thirty years after 
the death of our Lord, and not much used till it re- 
ceived the sanction of the venerable Bede as late as 
the eighth century, is acknowledged by eminent au- 
thority to be four years in error as to the date of 
Christ's birth, its assumed starting point.* 

So, too, the time of the landing of the Pilgrims still 
furnishes occasion for discussion, and though most 
agree to its celebration on the 22d of December, the 
descendants of Pilgrims and Puritans seem unable to 
settle, beyond question, its true and real date. 

And even as to the exact date of the original 
charter of Rhode Island, there was a difference of 
opinion among various writers, until Arnold, more 
than two hundred years after it was granted, ascer- 
tained from the official manuscripts in the State Paper 
Office in London, that its true date was the 14th of 
March, 1643.t 

In view of such facts and of the multitude of errors 

♦Modern authority places the actual date of the birth of Christ, on Friday, 
April 5, B. C. 4. Townsend's " Dictionary of Dates," 58. 
t Hist. R. I., I., 114. 



QUESTION AS TO THE SEAL. 5 

in dates, from writing, printing, transcribing and 
reprinting figures, which meet us on every hand 
where we look for exact statements, an historical 
society may admit the possibility of error in any 
recognized date. It may even question the time of 
its own birtli, and allow a grave inquiry as to the truth 
or reasonableness of any and every device on its cor- 
porate seal. 

In this regard, the question has been recently raised 
whether " Shawomet, 1642," is a proper or truthful 
device for this Society's seal. 

This question, submitted to your committee, is one 
to which, with some care and examination of author- 
ities and records within their reach, they have directed 
their attention, but the paucity of records and of 
clear statements, and the meagre history of the 
transactions of the first few years of the settlements 
at Providence and Warwick must be their apology 
for treating in what may seem a somewhat desultory 
manner, a question whose satisfactory solution depends 
so much on the course of events in Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island immediately preceding and following 
the purchase of Shawomet, and on the doings of a few 



6 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

weeks, nearly two centuries and a half ago, in the 
daily life of Samuel Gorton and John Greene. 

The records of the Society as to the adoption of 
the seal and the action of its " Board of Trustees" 
in all matters relating to the seal, may be briefly 
stated as follows : 

On the 27th of May, 1831, the Society appointed 
Joseph L. Tillinghast, Albert Gorton Greene, and 
Thomas H. Webb, a committee to procure a suitable 
seal to be cut for the Society, a device for which was 
submitted to " the Board." 

July 5th, 1831, the committee reported that they 
" had engaged Mr. W. D. Terry, of Providence, to cut 
the seal, which is in a state of forwardness." July 
19th, 1831, the seal was reported complete. Subse- 
quently, the Board and the Society passed a resolution 
formally adopting it as the common seal of the 
Society, and gave the device. They also reported that 
the design and device for the seal originated with 
Albert Gorton Greene, Esq. 

A description of the seal gives the design and de- 
vice as an equilateral triangle within a circle, on the 
several sides of which are the following inscriptions, 



DESIGN OP THE SEAL. 7 

viz.: On the base, " Moosliassuck, 1636"; on the 
right side, " Aquidncck, 1638 " ; on the left side, 
" Shawomet, 1642." Within the triangle is a " foul 
anchor." Around tlie circle, within raised bands, is 
the name of the Society with the figures " 1822," the 
year in which it was founded. 

As the records, however, are silent as to the pur- 
port and significance of the several devices, your com- 
mittee have been obliged to look for their probable 
origin and import to the main facts which appear in 
the founding of the Colony and the State, while giving 
some degree of consideration to special facts and dates 
which must have been impressed on the mind of 
Albert Gorton Greene, from his antiquarian tastes 
and relationship to John Greene, one of the first six 
settlers, as well as one of tlie thirteen original pro- 
prietors of Providence,* and one of the first settlers 
of Warwick. 

From this general view of the seal, it seems very 
evident, — 

First, that the central emblem, the anchor, was taken 
from the State arms, to indicate the relation of the 
Society to the State. 

* Colonial Records of R. I., 20, 21. 



8 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

Second, that the triangle was as evidently adopted 
to keep in memory the three-fold origin of the Colony 
and also of the State, a unit formed from that trinity 
of independent settlements established and developed 
at Providence, on the island of Rhode Island, and at 
Warwick, — names, each of which suggests a history of 
its own, and which at the time the Society's seal was 
adopted, had been in use for nearly two hundred 
years to designate those three principal historical 
and geographical divisions of this Commonwealth. 

Third, that the Indian names adopted on the seal, as 
another element of the device, were intended to desig- 
nate these three original divisions. In respect to 
them, the Indian nomenclature was happily chosen 
(as it would doubtless be again, were the question 
submitted to the Society to-day), Indian names being 
less common-place, falling on the ear not only with 
the more striking sound of a foreign tongue, but 
also carrying with them the prestige of an unknown, 
if not unlimited antiquity. 

To Providence, the northern division, was given the 
name " Mooshassuck," that of the river on whose 
banks the settlement of Roger Williams was made. 



NAMES OF THE SETTLEMENTS. 9 

To the settlement on the island of Rhode Island, 
the southern division, was given the name of " Aquid- 
neck," the original name of the island itself.* 

To Warwick, the western division, was given the 
name " Shawomet," the name of a sachem-wick in 
that division of the State, the most conspicuous of all, 
from the character and conduct of its settlers, as well 
as the nucleus of that broad township of multitudin- 
ous villages, which the devotion of those settlers pre- 
served to the Colony and to the State. 

In fact, from the time of the first charter,! Shaw- 
omet was synonymous with Warwick, the two names 
being used interchangeably both by the men of War- 
wick and their enemies of " the Bay." But at the 
time the Society adopted its seal, nearly two centuries 
afterwards, Shawomet had in the light of history be- 
come a name not only memorable, but consecrated by 
the heroism, the sufferings, and the christian patience 
of Samuel Gorton and his companions. 

This small but indomitable band, with the laws of 



* The name of Rhode Island, in place of Aquidneck, adopted 1644. R. I. Col. 
Rec, I., 127. 
+ Marcli 14, 1643. 



10 I'HE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

God in one hand and the laws of England in the 
other, withstood all the efforts of the Government of 
Massachusetts Bay, by soldiers and savages, by pris- 
ons and fetters and worse than inquisitorial cruelties, 
to force on them a Puritan hierarchy and a foreign 
jurisdiction, each as merciless in its tyranny as it was 
regardless of law.* 

Desperate as the contest seemed, Gorton and his 
companions triumphed at last. Rliode Island owes 
their memory a heavy debt. Never were men's mo- 
tives so aspersed, their names so unjustly branded 
with infamy, their characters so foully traduced, and 
this not for a time merely, but from age to age ; and 
we may be excused for saying, that in the history of 
New England can scarcely be found a more dramatic 
scene than the trial of Gorton before the assembled 
magistrates and elders of "the Bay," when, guiltless 

* " For ten years after the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, the clerffv and 
IZTiolT '"'" "'""' ^^^'" ^° ^^^^^'•^^^ ^'^^ ^°--- L- o'to 

" From the outset, lawyers were excluded from practice, so the magistrates 
w re notlun^ but common politicians who were nominated ly the priest " 

The assembled elders, acting in their advisory capacity constituted 
supreme tribunal of last resort, wholly superiorto carLl preced;n and doable 

co::ZZs:T:trf''''''''''^'' expedient fro^ the depths ^the 
consciousness.- See Gorton's case. Winthrop, II., 146 '• _ Adams' •' F.nan 
cipation of Massachusetts.- 289-291. ^ ^^^ ^'"''°- 



DESIGN ON Gorton's life. 11 

of any illegal act and a betrayed prisoner of war,* he 
is first ordered on peril of his life, to answer luithin 
fifteen minutes^ in writing over his own hand, to the 
satisfaction of his enemies, four most obscure and 
crafty questions :j: of their theology, contrived (as 
those of the Pharisees to our Saviour,) " that they 
might entangle him in his talk," and thus compass 
his death. 

For Miantonomi, Chief of the Narragansetts, hav- 
ing been disposed of in September, by what Arnold 
calls a " clerico-judicial murder," § the chance offered 
to "the Bay" of securing absolute control of the entire 
Narragansett country, through their allies Pomham 



* R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., IIS, 12O1 203- 

t R. I. Hist, Soc. Coll., II., 126. 

X " The questions," writes Gorton, " were these that here follow, not a word 
varying in any one of them ; " 

" 1. Whether the Fathers who died before Christ was born of the Virgin 
Mary, were justified, and saved only by the blood which he shed, and the death 
which he suffered after his incarnation? " 

" 2. Whether the only price of our redemption were not the death of Christ 
upon the cross, with the rest of his sufferings and obedience in the time of his 
life here, after he was born of the Virgin Mary? " 

" 3. Who is that God whom he thinks we serve? " 

" 4. What he means when he saith, We worship the star of our God Rem- 
phan, Chion, Moloch?" R. I. Hist. Soc Coll., II., 12^ 6. 

§ Hist. R. I., I., 117. 



12 THE SETTLEMENT OF AVARWICK. 

and Sacououoco,* by a similar dispatch of Gorton 
and his companions in October, was too tempting for 
them to forego. Apparently, as Winthrop previously 
expressed it, in reference to their motives and aims in 
that direction, " they thought it not wisdom to let it 
slip." t 

The plot, however, failed. As Gorton says : " When 
by all their examinations in Court, interrogatories in 
prison, and public preaching they could find nothing 
against us for tlie transgression of any of their laws, 
they then proceeded to cast a lot for our lives, putting 
it to the major vote of the Court whether we should 



* In a letter to the Massachusetts, Gorton pictures with some humor these 
two petty renegade sachems, its allies : 

" Indeed, Pomham is an aspiring person, as becomes a prince of his profes- 
sion, — for having crept into one of our neij<l:bor's houses (in tlie absence of 
the people) and feloniously rifled the same, he was taken coming out again at 
the chimney-top." 

" Sacotionoco, also, hath entered in like manner into one of our houses, with 
divers of his companions, and, breaking open a chest, did steal out divers par- 
cels of goods."— R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 267. 

The same letter says : " Mr. Winthrop and his co-partner Parker may not 
think to lay our purchased plantation [Warwick] to their island [Prudence] 
so near adjoining, for they come too late in that point, — though Benedict 
[Arnold] hath reported that Miantonomi, one of the sachems of whom we 
bought it, should lose his head for selling his right thereof to us." 

" As also a minister affirmed, that Mr. Winthrop should say to him that we 
should either be subjected unto you, or else removed hence, though it should 
cost blood."— R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 365. 

t Savage's Winthrop, II., 102. 



DECISION OF THE GENERAL COtJRT. 13 

live or die ; which was so ordered by the providence 
of God, that two votes carried it on our side."* 

Yet, though " the Governor [Winthrop] told Gorton 
that they were one with him in those answers," f he 
and his companions were imprisoned at hard labor, "in 
fetters and irons," through the rest of the autumn and 
a long winter, — " as blasphemous enemies to the true 
religion of our Lord Jesus Christ and all his holy 
ordinances, and also to all civil authority among the 
people of God, and particularly in this jurisdiction."^ 

* Mr. Savage says, " three of the magistrates rejected the horrible judgment 
of the Elders that the [alleged] offences deser\'ed death." — Savage's Winthrop, 

n., .77. 

+ R.I. Hist. See. Coll., II., 132-4. 

X R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll. II., 134, s, 6, 7. 

Chief Justice Story says : " The arm of the civil government was constantly 
employed in support of the denunciations of the Church : and without its forms, 
the Inquisition existed in substance, with a full share of its terrors and vio- 
lence." — Story's Miscellanies, 66. 

Mr. Charles Deane, in his Memoir of Samuel Gorton, while stigmatizing 
" the whole conduct of the Massachusetts towards Gorton as atrocious" 
erroneously states that Gorton was released in January. On the contrary, even 
the order of the General Court for his release was not dated till " the 7th day 
of tlie first month [March] 1643 or 1644." — Some Notices of Samuel Gorton, 17. 

Gorton was brought to Boston as a prisoner of war, Oct. 13, 1643. Savage's 
Winth., II.,i7i. " A great triumph," he says, " for a whole country [by three 
officers and forty trained soldiers with Pomham and his savages] to carry away 
eleven men and that upon fair composition also, if they had kept touch with us, 
for one of us was dead before by hardship and but ten of us that handled arms." 
— R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 119. 

He was sentenced November 3, 1643; released March 7, 1643-4. 

Winthrop's cruel order (notwithstanding the fourteen days allowed by the 



14 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

Such rigor shocked even the Presbyterian Baillie,* 
but as a son of Massachusetts has said, — " the clergy 
held the State within their own grasp, and shrank 
from no deed of blood to guard the interests of their 
order."! 

Scattered in the different towns of the Massachu- 
setts, the knowledge of their sufferings and their 
purity of character J could not be entirely hid, till 
at last, public opinion and a sense of danger to their 
own power, forced the Puritan dynasty to set them 
free. § 

General Court), for his expulsion from the town of Boston — " before noon this 
day " — is dated " the loth of the first month [March] 1643."— R. I. Hist. See, 
Coll., II., 148-9. 

* Letters II., 17, iS. 

t Adams' "Emancipation of Massachusetts," 40-41. 

The manly utterances of Savage, Deane and Adams stand in refreshing 
contrast to the Jesuitical apologies of Palfrey, for not only the cruelty but all 
the illegality and hypocrisy, which he evidently recognizes, in the proceedings 
against Gorton. 

{ " And whereas you say, I am become a sordid man in my life; I dare be 
so bold as to lay my conversation among men to the rules of humanity, with 
any minister among you, in all the passages of my life which God hath brought 
me through from my youth unto this day, that it has been as comely and in- 
nocent as his." — Gorton to Nathaniel Morton, R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 247. 

" I have been silent to cover other men's shame, and not my cwn." 

" It should be a crown, yea, a diadem upon my grave, if the truth in more 
public or more private agitation, were but in prose and not in poetrie, as it 
was acted by me in all the places wherein you seek to blemish me." — Letter to 
Nathaniel Morton, R. I. Hist. Tracts, No. XVII., 56. 

§ Savage's Winth., II., 178-9. 



APPEAL TO THE CROWN. 15 

Then Gorton, Greene and Holden made their strong 
and solemn appeal to the State of Old England. They 
procured at the same time and also bore with them to 
England, a formal deed of submission from the power- 
ful Narragansett Tribe, of themselves and their whole 
territory to King Charles."* 

The justice of their claims could not be denied. The 
laws and the throne of England asserted their su- 
premacy. England upheld both the men of Shaw- 
omet and the Narragansetts against the usurped juris- 
diction of " the Bay," which in her humiliation was 
forced to call upon the Commissioners of the United 



• R. 1. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., isS-6o. 

That acute historian, Palfrey, recognizes the deep significance of this trans- 
action. He says : 

"The next step showed their resolution, their capacity for business, and 
that power of theirs which it had been thought so important to subdue." 
" They succeeded in concluding a treaty with Canonicus, Mixan and Pessicus 
to no less effect than a complete cession of the Xarragansett people and terri- 
tory, unto the protection, care and government of that worthy and royal prince, 
Charles, King of Great Britain and Ireland, his heirs and successors forever." 

They then notified the authorities of Massadiusetts of this cession, and 
" threatened them with the vengeance of the King and of the Mohawks should 
they presume to interfere." Palfrey's Hist. N. E., II., 136-7. 

By this transaction, completed within forty days after their release from 
prison, they gave the death-blow to the usurpation of Massachusetts. She 
struggled against it for years; through the changes of the Civil War — the 
Commonwealth and the Restoration — sent in her soldiers, — annexed the coun- 
try, by vote, to the County of Suffolk, — but the coveted territory she never 
secured. 



16 THE SETTLEMENT OF AVARWICK. 

Colonies for aid against " opposition from Warwick,"'^' 
Thus Gorton's successful appeal and the stern re- 
buke it brought to the assumption and tyranny of the 
Puritan Hierarchy, with the adoption of the Narragan- 
setts by King Charles as wards an^ subjects of the 
State, preserved in a momentous degree the whole 
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 
and led not merely to its final emancipation from the 
usurpations of Massachusetts Bay, but to its eventual 
establishment as an independent State. 

To the theocracy of the Bay, the order of May 15, 
1646, by the Governor-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral 
and Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, came 
like a judgment call.f It declared, with no uncertain 
sound, — " We find the tract of land called Narragan- 
sett Bay luholly ivilhout the bounds of the Massachu- 
setts Patent " ; — and we — " require you to permit and 
suffer the petitioners and all tlie late inhabitants of 
Narragansett Bay, with their families and all such 
as shall hereafter join with them, freely and quietly 
to live and plant upon Shawomet," etc., — " without 

• R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 231. 
+ R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 196-7. 



JUDGMENT AGAINST MASSACHUSETTS. 17 

extending jour jurisdiction to any part thereof, or 
otherwise disquieting in their consciences, or civil 
peace." 

" We do also require, that you do suffer the said 
Mr. Gorton, Mr. Holden, Mr. Greene and their com- 
pany with tiieir goods and necessaries to pass through 
any part of that territory which is under your juris- 
diction, towards said tract of land without molesta- 
tion, any former sentence of expulsion, or otherwise, 
notwithstanding." 

But to return to our immediate subject : the names 
on the seal being thus accounted for, it is next in 
order to consider the question of the dates. With 
regard to these, while records are infrequent, and 
dates often obscure even where records are found, it 
appears to your committee that '' the Board " in- 
tended in fixing the dates, to specify the earliest as- 
certained year of a definite purchase by the English 
for settlement, or of tlie actual establishment of a per- 
manent community or settlement, within each of the 
three several divisions of the colony, that is, Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island and Warwick. 

As to Providence, they adopted the unquestioned 



18 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

date of Roger Williams' settlement there, iu 1636, 
" two years," as lie says, " before a deed was given." * 

As to Rhode Island, they adopted the date of 1638, 
the year in which an actual settlement was made on 
the island at Pocasset, now Portsmouth, pursuant to 
the compact between the settlers there, signed pre- 
viously at Providence.! 

As to Warwick, they adopted the date of 1642, the 
recorded date of John Greene's purchase, and of 
Gorton's, Greene's and their companions' purchase, 
within the limits of Warwick. J To this date your at- 
tention is especially directed, that you may decide 
whether it is right or wrong. 

When, then, was the earliest purchase for a settle- 
ment, or first actual settlement, within the limits of 
historic Warwick, made ? — meaning by Warwick, the 
territory northerly of Potowomut River and southerly 
and outside of all that debatable ground (claimed as 
and called Providence), involved in the Providence 



* Deed to Roger Williams, March 24, 1637. Staples' Annals, 26. 
t Col. Rec, I., $2; Arnold, Hist. R. I., I., 70, 71 ; Deed of R. I., March 34, 
i6i7. 
t R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 253-4. 



JOHN Greene's purchase. 19 

purchase of " the meadows up stream without limits " 
on the Pawtuxet River.* 

Here, happily, on the territory known as, and called 
Warwick, for nigh two centuries and a half, nothing 
seems better established than that the first purchase 
by the English in these parts was made by John 
Greene, to whom was deeded on the first day of Octo- 
ber, 1642, the tract of land called Occupessuatuxct, by 
Miantonomi, Chief Sachem of the Narragansetts, and 
Sockononoco, the local sachem of Pawtuxet. 

That he bought it for a settlement, a plantation and 
a home, seems abundantly evident, for Judge Staples 
states that on the 25th of September, 1644, he was 
actually residing there. f How much earlier lie had 
established himself on the land does not appear. But 
he and his family held it as a home for more than 
a hundred and forty years, and there, doubtless, he 
himself was, as certainly successive generations of 
his descendants were, laid to rest. 

This John Greene, an English surgeon, was the 
founder of a family than which none has been more 

♦ staples' Annals of Providence, 26, 27. 
+ R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 89, Note. 



20 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

prominent or more honored in the annals of the State. 
The mention of a few names will suffice. It gave to 
the Colony two governors, and to the State a lieuten- 
ant-governor (all named William Greene), — to this His- 
torical Society two presidents, Albert Gorton Greene 
and Samuel Greene Arnold, — to the army of the Rev- 
olution Colonel Christopher Greene and Major-Gen- 
eral Nathanael Greene, — and to the United States 
forces in the Rebellion, Major-General George Sears 
Greene and his two gallant sons. In this connec- 
tion it is well worthy of notice that all these, without 
exception, were also lineal descendants of Samuel 
Gorton. 

Now Albert Gorton Greene, who designed the seal 
of the Society, a trustee from its foundation, and 
vice-president and president for twenty-five years, 
being a lineal descendant of this John Greene as well 
as of Samuel Gorton, and this deed of October 1, 1642, 
having been preserved, it is morally certain that it 
was neither overlooked nor disregarded by this most 
active and influential member of " the Board," and 
that he was perfectly familiar with its bounds and 
date. 



SAMUEL Gorton's purchase. 21 

And it appears to your committee that these well 
established facts attending John Greene's purchase, 
were of themselves a sufficient warrant for the in- 
scription of the date of lG-i2 upon the seal of the So- 
ciety, as the earliest date in which " Shawomet, alias 
Warwick,""^ first began to pass permanently under 
English control. 

But further than all this, the same John Greene, 
with Samuel Gorton and others, became only three 
months later, — viz. : on the 12th of January, 1642, as 
the deed shows, a purchaser of the sachem-wick Shaw- 
omet, or what is commonly called " Old Warwick." 
This is the record ; this, too, was well-known to 
the designer of the seal, and there is reason to be- 
lieve that both deeds were a part of one plan, that of 
October 1st being only a preliminary acquisition in 
prospect of a larger settlement on the more extensive 
domain, a negotiation for which would naturally oc- 
cupy more time. With these two records before us, 
the date of 1642 on each, and the undoubted fact that 
settlement followed close upon, if it did not actually 
ante-date each deed, what is there to invalidate the 

* R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 317. 



22 THE SETTLEMENT OP WARWICK. 

device " 1642 " upon the seal, and on what ground 
could it be pronounced wrong ? The only ground 
would seem to be : 

1st. That by " Shawomet," the Society limited it- 
self to consideration of the Gorton purchase only, 
which your committee, for reasons already stated, are 
assured was not at all their view. 

2d. That the date of the Gorton deed (January 12, 
1642), is a date of " Old Style." 

Admitting that the date of the Gorton deed is in 
Old Style, your committee is of opinion that it should 
not be rejected on that account, for the reason that if 
the John Greene deed of the previous October, which 
is without any objection as to the " Style," were 
thrown out of consideration, the seal date of 1642, as 
the date of the limited Shawomet purchase, is in their 
judgment valid and properly used. 

The deed to Samuel Gorton and others specifies 
"January 12th, Anno Domini, 1642," as the day and 
year on which Miantonomi set his hand thereto, and 
this without reference to, or recognition of any " Style," 
old or new, or the possibility of any change. The 
deed is dated in accordance with both English custom 



OLD AND NEW STYLE. 23 

and English law, as it then was and continued to be 
for more than a hundred years afterward, tlie change 
to New Style not being authorized in England or in 
her colonies till 1751, nor carried into ejffect till 1752,* 
a hundred and ten years after the deed was made, 
when more than three generations of the Greenes and 
Gortons had passed away. 

Beyond reasonable question the legal date, as well 
as the legal record of the Shawomct purchase, was 
January, 1642. The legal year 1643, did not com- 
mence, according to the then mode of reckoning with 
all English people, till the 25th of tlie following 
March, so that the action of the Society in affixing to 
their seal the date 1642, appears to your committee 
to have been perfectly competent and without im- 
peachment, even if it were necessary, as it is not, to 
construe that date as referring to the settlement of the 
sachem-wick Shawomet alone. 

Tlie propriety and legality of this construction and 
use of dates, is curiously confirmed by a contemporary 



* Act 24, George II., C. 2^, 1751. Townsend's Manual of Dates, 723-4. 
Bailey's Dictionary, London, 1749. In verb. 

January 1, 1752, was the first day of the first English year of New Style. 
— Act 44, George II., C. 23, 1751. 



24 THE SETTLEMENT OF WAEAVTCK. 

illustration, in the conspicuous fact tliat the Ordi- 
nance of the English Parliament creating Robert, 
Earl of Warwick, Governor-in-Chief of all the islands 
and plantations of his majesty's subjects within or on 
the coasts of America, together with a body of Com- 
missioners to assist him therein, bears date and was 
passed" November 2d, Anno Domini IGiS,""^ while the 
Charter to Providence Plantations made four months 
afterward, and, as they recite, " by the authority of 
the said Ordinance of Lords and Commons," f bears 
date March 14th, "in the year of our Lord God 1643." J 
However inconsistent in modern view this (to us) in- 
verted succession of dates may appear, it had no 
such aspect to the men of those early days, and in- 
volves no contradiction in fact. 

Indeed, as a matter of legal accuracy, every date of 
a legal, civil, or ecclesiastical character, preceding the 
change of Style in 1752, and as far back as the four- 
teenth century, should be in Old Style. 

The statement of the double date (that is of both 
Styles) between 1st of January and 2.5th of March, 

* R. I. Hist. Soc Coll., II., 250-3. 
+ Bartlett's Col. Records, I., 143 6. 
X R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II.. 259-62, 



FIRST SUMMONS, OCTOBER, 1642. 25 

has no authority except as a coiiveuient note or aid 
to memory, for the benefit of modern readers, in order 
to prevent confusion.* 

It is important, however, to go one step further 
in the examination of the question before us. Not a 
mouth had elapsed after the deed to John Greene 
was given, when the Massachusetts sent a warrant 
unto Gorton, Greene, and their companions, to com- 
mand appearance at their courts, and threatening vio- 
lence unless it were obeyed. f The effect of this war- 
rant or summons, entitled " Massachusetts to our 
Neighbors of Providence," and bearing date, October 
28th, 1642, as well as the reply to it, and the concom- 
itant events, we must now consider. 

This summons, sent by Governor Winthrop (through 
the hands of his agent, William Arnold), was received 
by Gorton and his friends, to use Gorton's own words, 
" before we planted upon that tract of land called 
Shawomet." $ 

* In the seventh century and for several centuries later, the year began in 
England on Christmas day, but in the twelfth century the Anglican Church 
commenced the year on Annunciation, or Lady-Day, March 35th, and this con- 
tinued until the adoption of the New Style. 

t R. I. Hist Soc. Coll., II., 52-3. 

X R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., Si. 



26 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

They had not, therefore, left their Providence- 
Pawtuxet homes (near Roger Williams Park), as late 
as the close of October, 1642. 

But this summons, following so soon the purchase 
of John Greene, presaged, as Gorton thought and as 
he was advised by others, a coming struggle by the 
Massachusetts " to take in all the Narragansett Bay 
under their government and jurisdiction." The im- 
pression it made and the course of action adopted 
under this threatening prospect, we must look to Gor- 
ton to explain. 

He says: "This warrant being delivered to us, in 
the name of ' the Massachusetts,'* we took into serious 
consideration, having former experience abundantly, 
of their unkind and inhumane dealing with us, yea 
towards our wives, and children, when ourselves were 
sometimes in banishments and sometimes in prison 
and irons (by them) before.f We thought it meet, 
for the preservation of our peace, together with that 

* R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., S4-S. 

■f " The absorption of sacerdotal, political and juridical functions by a sin- 
gle class produces an arbitrary despotism ; and before j udges greedy o f earthly 
dominion, flushed by a sense of power, unrestrained by rules of law or evi- 
dence, and unopposed by a resolute and courageous bar, trials must become 
little more than conventional forms, precursors of predetermined punish- 
men.s," — Adams' " Emancipation of Massachusetts," 292. 



SACRIFICES FOR PEACE. 27 

compassion we had of our wives and little ones, to 
leave our houses and the rest of our labors lying near 
unto tliose their pretended subjects, whom we saw ma- 
liciously bent, and to remove ourselves and families 
further off from the Massachusetts, and such their 
coadjutors being then amongst us. For we saw that 
they did not only endeavor to take away our livelihood, 
but intended to take away our lives also, in case they 
could find a way to satisfy the country in doing of 
such an act and execution, for we never had accusa- 
tion brought in against us, but what rose from the 
magistrates and the ministers ; "^ for we walked so as 
to do no man wrong, only justified the cause of our 
religion, as we had learned and received the principles 
thereof before we went amongst them; as also the 
Laws and Government of this Kingdom of England, 
unto which we ever willingly acknowledged ourselves 
to be loyal subjects ; and therefore could not suffer 
ourselves to be entrenched upon by our fellow-subjectSj 



* Dr. Palfrey says : '■ The Clergy maintained their rule with great sagacity 
acd energy; though excluded from secular affairs, they constituted in some 
sort a separate estate, which, unelected, — a bench above and irresponsible to 
law, — was summoned to decide in all cafes of importance, involving the high- 
est questions of liberty and life itself." 



28 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

further than the '' Laws of our King and State do 
allow." * 

Gorton contmues: "We removed ourselves into 
another part of the Narragansett Bay, further from the 
Massachusetts, and where none of the English nor 
other nations had anything to do, only Indians, the 
true natives, of whom we bought a parcel of land, 
called Shawomet, not only of Miantonomi chief Sa- 
chem, or Prince of those parts of the Country, but 
also with the free consent of the inhabitants of 
the place," t — and, "Plainly perceiving that tlie drift of 
the Massachusetts, and those joined with them, was 
not only to take the whole country of the English 
plantations into their jurisdiction, but also to estab- 
lish what way of religion themselves thought fit, to tlie 
taking away not only of goods, but lives also, of such 
as were otherwise minded, we made answer unto the 
writing they had sent unto us, on this wise : — which 
answer was made upon our remoyaZ from Mooshawset, 
otherwise called Providence, to Shawomet." % 



♦R. I, Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 54-s. 
t R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., S9-6o. 
% R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 60. 



ANSAVER TO THE SUMMONS. 29 

This answer is dated, " Moosliawset, November the 
20, 1642," and that there might be no miscarriage or 
delay, was delivered into the hands of Governor Win- 
throp by a special messenger.* When carefully ex- 
amined it sheds much light on the Shawomet pur- 
chase and the proceedings preliminary thereto. In 
reply to the objections urged by " the Bay " against 
the purchase of Indian lands, he says : " To our 
neighbors of the Massachusetts " f — " In that you tell 
us we offer wrong [to the natives] by a pretended 
purchase, you are as much mistaken in the purchase 
as in the wrong, for it is right that we are about to 

* Savage's Winthrop, II., 174.. 

t R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 60. 

Elsewhere he says: " Our Countrymen, for we cannot but call you so, 
though we find your carriage to be so far worse than these Indians." — R. I. 
Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 84. 

Even their own brethren, the founders of Connecticut, who had gone 100 
miles into the wilderness from them, experienced their tyranny. Roger Wil- 
liams writes ; — ''That heavenly man, Mr. Haynes, Governor of Connecticut, 
though he pronounced the sentence of my long banishment against me, at 
Cambridge, then Newtown, yet said to me, in his own house at Hartford, being 
then in some difference with the Bay; — I think Mr. Williams I must now 
confess to you that the most wise God hath provided and cut out this part of his 
world for a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences." " I am now 
under a cloud and my brother Hooker, with the Bay, as 3'ou have been ; we 
have removed from them tluis far, and yet they are not satisfied " — Letters of 
Roger Williams, Narr. Club, Vol. VI., 344-5. 

Dr. Palfrey suggests, as a cause of this dissatisfaction, that "The Con- 
necticut settlers did not adopt, in their own settlement, that radical feature of the 
social system of Massachusetts which founded the civil franchise on church- 
membership." — Palfrey, Hist. N. E., I., 447. 



30 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

do. Neitlier is our purchase a pretence, but j^re^e^en- 
im/," etc. (i. e., they had an agreement for the lands 
precedent to any formal deed). He then repudiates 
the Massachusetts' claim of a right in their clients of 
Pawtuxet "by conquest," or "four years' possession," 
" their possession being a mere intrusion, as all the 
natives know," for " the true owners were never yet 
subdued." He then explains the position more fully, 
saying, "But we profess right [i. e., title] held in no 
such interest, but according to the ground of Covenant 
only known in its nature in the parties twixt whom 
it is plight, in the possessor and the possessed, arising 
from their accord and concurrency together with their 
distinct, harmonical, reciprocal and joint properties 
and operations of them both." "Such is the tenure 
that we hold, and maintain it before men and angels, 
and oppose [i.e., defend] it against men and devils."*- 
This answer, as stated, bears date November 20th, 
1642, and seems clearly to indicate, that though the 
formal deed of conveyance had not then passed, the 
territory to be deeded, the principal terms, covenants 
and conditions of the purchase, had already been set- 

* R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 65-66. 



PURCHASE OF INDIAN LANDS. 31 

tied, and the riglit of use and possession acquired ; 
and it confirms the supposition that the purchase of 
Occupessuatuxet by John Greene was but a first step 
towards the principal purchase of Shawomet by Gor- 
ton and Greene with their companions. 

These views are confirmed by the analogous state- 
ments and proceedings of Roger Williams as to his 
own purchase, who says : '" " I, in the years 1634 and 
1635, had several treaties with Conanicusse & Mianto- 
nome, the Chief Sachems of the Narragansetts, and in 
the end, purchased of them the lands and meadows 
upon the two fresh rivers, called Mooshassick and 
Wanasquatucket. The two Sachems having by a 
Deed, under their hands, dated March 24th 1637,t two 
years after the sale thereof, established and confirmed 
the bounds of these lands from the river and fields of 
Pawtuckqut and the great hill of Neotaconconitt on 
the North West, and the town of Mashapauge on the 
West," etc., etc. " I, having made a covenant of 
peaceable neighborhood with all the Sachems and na- 
tives around about us, and having a sense of God's 



* Staples' Annals, 30, 31. 

t Same date with the Deed of Aquidneck. 



32 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

merciful providence unto me in mj distress, called the 
place Providence." 

This deed of Canonicus and Miantonomi to Roger 
Williams bearing date 24th of March, 1637, the last 
day of the year, Staples says, " is the earliest convey- 
ance in the records of Providence," and that it is prob- 
able the sale two years previous, to Roger Williams was 
a verbal one, — and that this deed of 24th March, 1637, 
" is a confirmation of the precedent grant, or rather a 
declaration of the bounds of the lands conveyed by it."* 

Now Gorton though bold and persistent, with all the 
courage of his convictions, and awake to the coming 
conflict with " the Bay," was a man of peace, a sin- 
cere follower of his Divine Master, and did not hesitate 
to sacrifice at once his house and property on the Paw- 
tuxet purchase, to gain that peace and independence 
which were to him more dear.t His purpose was clear, 
his plans were made, and he doubtless improved the 

* Annals of Providence, 26-7. 

+ " In England, through importunity, 1 was persuaded to speak the Word 
of God publicly in divers and eminent places as any were then in London." 
" I was invited to speak in the presence of such as had the title of Excel- 
lency [Cromwell (1)] and lovingly embraced, wherever I came, in the Word 
uttered, with the most eminent Christians in the place, etc., etc.'' Gorton's 
Letter to Nathaniel Morton. R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 147. 

(1) Carlyle's Cromwell, I., 477, 488, etc. 



INTO THE WILDERNESS. 33 

time between the summons and bis reply to close any 
unsettled question in bis covenants and treaty witb 
Miantonomi. Tbeu, alive to tbe power wbicb posses- 
sion gives, and urged by tbe approach of w^inter, he 
dispatches his "Reply," to Governor Winthrop, de- 
claring their rightful claims and repudiating any and 
all jurisdiction of tbe Massachusetts. At the same 
time he does not delay a moment in the work of push- 
ing forward with his companions, and taking actual 
possession ; planting themselves in a wilderness in 
which no white man or subject of the Massachusetts 
stood, and fortifying their claims in the January fol- 
lowing by a formal deed, which implies previous pos- 
session, in the fact that it was " enacted upon the 
above-said parcell of land," as well as from other 
terms of the conveyance.* That Gorton and his com- 
pany had thus taken possession of Shawomet some 
time before the date of the deed, is made not merely 
probable by this declaration and the facts and circum- 
stances referred to, but must be inferred from his for- 
mal statement, " We made answer unto the writing 



* The language of Miantonomi is — "I say I have sold it and possession of it 
given unto the men aforesaid." — R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 253-4. 



34 Tllii SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

they bad sent unto us, on this wise ; which answer 
was made npon our removal from Mooshawset, other- 
wise called Providence, to ' Shawomet' " ; and the time 
of this answer is distinctly given as " November the 
20th, 1642."* 

Not only is this language explicit as to this time of 
their removal, but he also places it in direct contrast 
with his previous statement that the warrant from 
Massachusetts of 28 September, 1642, came " before 
we planted upon that tract of land called 'Shaw- 
omet, ' " t and with his subsequent statement, that the 
warrant of September 12th, 1643, was the first " after 
our removal unto and planting upon our land at Shaw- 
omet." ij: 

He thus gives a time before, a time after and the 
time upon which the removal to Shawomet took place, 
and this not in casual statements, but as specific points 
in his arraignment of the Government of Massachu- 
setts Bay, — " a more particular and full relation," 
as he calls it, in his dedication to the Earl of Warwick, 



•R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 6o. 
t R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., S3. 
tR. I. Hist. Soc, Coll. II., 95. 



REMOVAL TO SHA.WOMET. 35 

than could be embodied in his formal appeal to the 
Crown.* 

The evidence thus seems quite clear, that Gorton 
and his company, in November, 1642, removed from 
the Pawtuxet purchase to Shawomet. The statement 
in each case is equally exact, and all have the accuracy 
and unquestioned truthfulness of Gorton for their 
support.! 

The confidence of your Committee in these conclu- 



* R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 35. 

\ Samuel Eddy, late Chief Justice of Rhode Island, and many years Secre- 
tary of State, says : " I have read, I believe, almost every word that is legible 
of the Record of this Colony from its first settlement till after the death of 
Gorton," 

"From the firs^t estab'.ishment of government [it R. I.,] he was almost con. 
stantly in office and during a long life there is no instance of record, to my 
knowledge, of any reproach or censure cast upon him." 

"This can hardly be said of any other settler of the Colony of any standing." 

" It was this fact that fixed my opinion of the general tenor of his conduct 
and the uprightness of his char.xter." 

" It would be a remarkable fact that a man should be an enemy to magistracy, 
to religion, — in short, a bad man, — and yet should constantly enjoy the confi- 
dence of his fellow-townsmen and receive the highest honors in their gift." 

Savage's Winthrop, II., 70-71, Ed. 1853. R- I. Hist. Tracts, No. XVII., 5-8. 

Thomas Durfee, Chief Justice of Rhode Island, says : " The list of the earlier 
judges includes, along with the names of many forgotten worthies, the historic 
names of Roger Williams, John Clarke, William Coddington, and Samuel 
Gorton." 

R. I. Hist. Tracts, No. XV III., 10. 

Dr. George E. Ellis, while comtiending Gorton's "honest and n-ible inde- 
pendence," says : " His corre^poudonce with John Winthrop, Jr., in his old 
age, as given in the Winthrop Papers, presents him in a most charming light." 



36 THE SETTLEMENT OF WARWICK. 

sions is confirmed by the fact, that since the foregoing 
was written, they find that the late Chief Justice 
Brayton, in his " Defence of Gorton,"* fixes the ter- 
mination of Gorton's residence at Pawtuxet, on the 
20th of November, 1642, thus giving the same con- 
struction your Committee have given to Gorton's lan- 
guage. The reasonableness of the construction may 
be inferred from the fact that it was in each case 
wholly independent of the other. 

Judge Brayton also says, " In the beginning of the 
winter of 1642-3, they took up their abode at Shaw- 
omet and prepared themselves for the coming winter, 
and before the expiration of sixty days received their 
conveyance from Miantonomi and set down upon their 
own purchased possession." These sixty days must 
have been reckoned between 13th of November, 1642, 
and 12th of January, 1642-3, following ; and this state- 
ment, though somewhat incongruous in its use of tlie 
term " winter," would place their removal to Shawo- 
met either the last part of November, or very early in 
December ; at all events, within the year 1642. 

In view, therefore, of the foregoing considerations, 

* R. I. Hist. Tracts, No. XVII. 



CONCLUSION. 37 

and of the main facts which may be briefly summed 
up as follows, viz.: 

1st. That by the name Shawomet on the seal, was 
intended the whole of Warwick as representing the 
western division of the State, — 

2d. That John Greene had taken Occupessua- 
tuxet, (in Warwick,) for a home and settlement by 
a formal deed as early as the first of October, 1642, — 

3d. That " Old Style " being legal English Style, 
at the period in question, we are bound to accept the 
date of Gorton's deed of the 12th of January, 1642, 
as a legal and unimpeachable date, — and 

4th. That we have the written statement of Gorton 
himself, that the " Reply " to their " Neighbors of the 
Massachusetts," of November 20, 1642, was made 
" upon the time of their removal to Shawomet," — 
your Committee are of the opinion, that, not only 
John Greene but also Samuel Gorton and his com- 
panions, became actual settlers within " Shawomet 
alias Warwick,"''^ in the year 1642, and that whether 
one holds to " Old Style" or to " New Style, " there 
is no good or sufficient reason to question the pro- 

*R. I. Hist. Soc. Coll., II., 217. 



38 



THE SETTLEMENT OP WARWICK. 



priety or truthfulness of the devices or dates on the 
seal of the Society, or for advising or adopting any 
change therein. 

All which is respectfully submitted. 

WILLIAM D. ELY, ^ 

JOHN A. HOWLAND, S ^'o^^^^^^^^- 

Providence, October i, 1887. 



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